When I woke I thought it was 7:30AM, then realized the time had changed (daylight savings time)! NOT. Arizona had chosen many years ago not to participate in this time honored tradition. And Caroline had thought she could get another hour in bed :) :). We had scoped a PCA close by in Flagstaff which was a half hour away and their morning worship was scheduled for 9AM, it was a half hour away. Once we realized we didn't have a lot of time, we quickly had a couple toast and coffee and got ready to go. Now in our house, we have a time honored tradition of boiled eggs for Sunday breakfast. With our departure time dwindling we had to forego our boiled eggs; now this might be the first time in many many years we didn't have our boiled eggs for breaky!
We arrived in time to the PCA and were warmly welcomed. Well there was no organ or piano, but the music leadership team did an admirable job with one guitar, drums, two electric keyboards, and 4 backup vocals. The pastor gave a good sermon on 2 Corinthians 8:1-9; he went on in length on our commitments as Christians to give back to God what is essentially His to start out with; a sermon that resonates with me having served as Deacon a number of times. I did notice in their bulletin
that their collection last week fell about 50% short of their expenses; hmmmmm :). We also participated in the Lord's supper; now this is the first time we've celebrated in this format. The pastor first read from 1 Corinthians (as do most PCA's) but then sang a song called "The Table of grace"; what an amazing voice this man had! After he finished singing, all were invited up to the front where two "helpers" put first a small piece of (fresh) bread into the palms of our hand, then we dipped the bread into a goblet of wine and then ate, certainly a different but effective way; it was done in an efficient and respectful manner.
The pastor spoke to us personally and welcomed us here, we would recommend this Church to any other sojourners passing through this area.
After Church we headed to Sedona; a quaint mountain town which has tourist destination written all over it. From there we visited a town up in the mountains called Jerome. As we were making the incline we couldn't help but notice how similar this was to the drive when you cross the middle of Crete! The road was narrow and many switch backs, but a quaint little town at the top with beautiful views. From there we made our way to what's called Montezuma Castle; its a section of a village which the Sinagua Indians inhabited around between about 700 to 900 AD. Well its a good thing we bought our Federal Park pass the other day; it got us in without paying anything!
From there we went to another Indian ruin called Montezuma Well; basically a large sink hole with fresh water with homes built into the walls. Not much left of the homes but an interesting site. The weather today was gorgeous; when we left Flagstaff it was initially 8 degrees when we left Church at around 11AM. By the time we got down (elevation went from 7100 to 3300 feet) to Sedona it had got to 25 degrees in the afternoon. We got back around 4 to enjoy a nice sunset around 5:30 our time. A very good day.
Flagstaff PCA
this was a scenic highway from Flagstaff to Sedona. There were numerous warnings about max 45' length of vehicles allowed. With so many switchbacks I could see why
outside Flagstaff
By Sedona
this was the road up to Jerome; this is exactly what the roads in Greece and Crete look like
Jerome
Jerome, very narrow streets
looking down from jerome
Montezuma Castle
I remember Montezuma well. But not the switchbacks.
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